[Interest] Porting Qt to our RTOS

Thu Sep 27 17:14:50 CEST 2018

On 9/27/18 1:53 AM, Kim Hartman  wrote:
> I am investigating how to bring Qt to our INtime RTOS. The INtime Distributed RTOS runs on standard PC hardware as a multicore AMP OS (no SMP and not POSIX compliant). Currently the RTOS has only a text console output based on INT10 services. The RTOS is fully preemptive, with strict priority based scheduling, managed process services with rich IPC services. The development environment is tightly coupled with MS VC (2008 and on) with ANSI C and C++11 language support. The RTOS is very stable and been commercially deployed for decades. It lacks a means for graphical programming, mostly for industrial controls application. What is the means to port Qt to this RTOS? We're not intending on building out OpenGL ES 2.0 unless absolutely necessary. I've read some marketing materials about Qt on MCU, however the details seem very thin. It's not Windows, Linux, OSX, Android, QNX, Integrity, or VxWorks... how to go about getting this done?

The short answer is that you shouldn't.

The AGILE processes behind Qt development means that a lot of shortcuts 
get taken and are allowed as long as the test-nothing automated test 
clears Jenkins. You should read up on the many discussions (one even 
within the past week) about critical bugs which rot until they are 
closed in typical OpenSource manner.

http://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/how-canonical-fixes-most-major-ubuntu-bugs/

http://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/2411/

You should instead look into OpenZinc.

http://openzinc.org/

This is a lightweight set of C++ wrapper classes for GUI. It was a 
commercial product back in the days of DOS, OS/2, Win 3.x and some MAC 
OS which no longer exists. WindRiver consumed the product to make it the 
standard GUI library for their RTOS. I stopped following it after that. 
Now it appears to be both a spun-off OpenSource and an independent 
commercial cross platform product again.

They didn't release the 5.x stuff, but you can start with 4.2 and see 
how things go.

http://openzinc.org/Downloads.html

Odd that they support gcc on linux and OpenWatcom on all other 
platforms. I only find that odd because OpenWatcom (well, commercial 
Watcom) had an IDE which wasn't bad. Talk was that was to be ported to 
Zinc. Be nice if it was one package again.

At any rate Qt isn't going to be RTOS friendly. At least not as RTOS 
friendly as something which is just a wrapper around services already 
provided by the RTOS.

Qt is an incredibly heavy massive footprint. It gets heavier and more 
massive every day. You won't be porting "just a GUI." CAN-BUS, Serial 
I/O, SQL database, timers, yet another thread class, the absolutely 
worthless QML (which pretty much means you will need to port JavaScript 
as well.) Ah yes! In order to claim you have "ported Qt" you will also 
need to port WebEngine and all of the other Web stuff.

For the Journey you're on little Hobbit, I humbly recommend you try 
OpenZinc first.

If that just doesn't work for some reason, see if you can find C-Scape. 
It didn't do a lot and was mostly only for DOS so should be easy to port.

http://www.drdobbs.com/c-scape-and-look-feel/184402269

There also seems to be some commercial thing with a similar name.

https://www.omega.com/manuals/manualpdf/M_CSCAPE_PROGRAM.pdf

If you really want to make me smile, find a copy of Greenleaf Data 
Windows. I loved the Greenleaf products back in the DOS days.

http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Greenleaf_Data_Windows

http://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/how-far-weve-come-pt-1/

http://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/expires-faster-than-milk/

KEWL!!

This place may have some!

http://emsps.com/oldtools/misc-g.htm

I'm pretty certain I've thrown out all my 5 1/4 floppies and a goodly 
number of 3.5" as well. Data Windows came with full source and was DOS 
INT based for mouse. This would be text based graphics so it would have 
a 1980s GUI look which is not all bad, especially for industrial 
control. You would have to hack your own touch screen pinch zoom support 
if you wanted it.

Btw, this product's non-existence is a DIRECT RESULT of Janet Reno (at 
the behest of the Clintons) committing treason against the human race. 
Greenleaf Data Windows existed long before Microsoft started committing 
wire and mail fraud with wanton abandon calling Windows an operating 
system. As a result of Janet Reno not putting Bill Gates in prison and 
even granting him/Microsoft domain over everything called Window or 
Windows, little bitty Greenleaf got weekly threatening letters from 
criminal attorneys at Microsoft and after about a year they discontinued 
the product.

I have seen Greenleaf Data Windows pop up on various Abandonware sites.

If you cannot find the source for Data Windows via safe legitimate means 
on your own you can try back channeling through Mark Nelson.

https://marknelson.us/posts/2006/08/25/don-killen-rip.html

If he doesn't have it he might be able to put you in touch with one of 
the other developers (Ruby, Danny?) or the last people to legally own 
Data Windows.

I'm spending so much time on Data Windows because you were mentioning 
INT10 and a DOS only GUI library would be your best bet. You will have 
the advantage of having only one memory model (vs. Compact, Small, 
Medium and Large before we even got into DOS extenders and overlay linkers).

-- 
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630) 205-1593

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